The Relationship Between Government Response Speed and Sentiments of Public Complaints: Empirical Evidence From Big Data on Public Complaints in South Korea (Published in SAGE Open, 2023)

This research asks how the emotions expressed in citizens’ complaints influence how quickly governments respond. Analyzing over 37,000 complaints filed in South Korea, we applied computational text analysis to detect fear, sorrow, and anger, and modeled response times with regression and event-history approaches. This design allowed us to capture not just whether governments respond, but how emotions shape the speed of bureaucratic action.

Results reveal that complaints infused with fear received faster responses, while those dominated by sorrow or anger were slower to be resolved. These findings contribute to political psychology by showing that not all negative emotions carry the same weight: fear appears to mobilize urgency, while anger and sorrow may dampen motivation. The project also offers practical insights—highlighting the importance of training and support for civil servants tasked with processing emotionally charged texts, to ensure fairness and efficiency in democratic governance.

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